Contractual Myopia

Two gents from University College London, George Letsas and Prince Saprai, have recently posted Private Law and Moral Practices Part 1: Contract (abstract here). Given their request at the head of the piece ("please do not quote or cite without permission"), I will refrain from delving deeply into this short piece. I will, however, on the one hand recommend it for warning against attempts to justify any substantial set of legal relationships (like, say, contract) based on a single moral principle (therein the danger of legal myopia). Reminds me of my legal multi-perspectivalism even if I do have to say so myself. (Look here for a short account of what I mean by "multi-perspectivalism.") I fear that such myopia often characterizes legal and political theorists, not to mention folks who make a living in talk radio.

On the other hand, sad to say, is that while Letsas and Sarprai do a fine job of describing the problem of legal myopia and the related distortions of inflation, repudiation, and stipulation, they don't do as well when explaining how multiple moral perspectives on a practice like contract should be related to each other. We can see that more than one moral principle may be at work once we identify the problem of myopia but we can do no more. They cannot say whether and what additional principles should be at work.

More accurate descriptions of what's going on in the law are to be preferred to less accurate ones but more than description must be done to justify any practice.